The Go To Food Podcast

Ben Benton is usually the man behind the mic, but this week the Go-To Food Podcast flips the script. In a special episode, Ben steps into the hot seat as the guest to celebrate something properly massive: his debut book, All You Can Eat: The Search for a New British Menu.

Before food took over his life, Ben had already lived a few careers. He started out in the City during the financial crash, walked away from it, then poured everything into launching a clothing brand, only for it to collapse and leave him bankrupt. That brutal reset sent him into kitchens, where he cut his teeth at Margot Henderson’s Rochelle Canteen and went on to work for Stevie Parle at The Dock Kitchen, learning the reality of food from the inside out.

Since then, he’s cooked, written, tested and built menus for some of the most influential names in modern food, from Meera Sodha to Max Halley, stacking up years of chaos, graft, disasters and hard-won knowledge along the way. Now all of that experience feeds into a mad, funny, addictive road trip around Britain, chasing what people actually eat when you are not filtering it through hype or press releases.

All of that lived experience pours directly into All You Can Eat: The Search for a New British Menu, a book that is less about best restaurants and more about what Britain actually eats. Ben drives the length of the country in a car, deliberately avoiding the obvious destinations and big-name kitchens, stopping instead at markets, roadside cafés, seaside towns, village shops and places you would normally drive straight past. Along the way he eats seafood pulled straight from cold water, jollof rice served far from any food trend, kebabs, curries, faggots and peas, smoked fish, market sandwiches and meals that are brilliant, baffling, occasionally awful and often unexpectedly moving. The result is a funny, honest and sharply observed portrait of modern Britain, told through food, where regional habits, migration, class, comfort and taste collide. It is a travelogue, a memoir and a food book rolled into one, capturing the chaos, boredom, joy and small moments of connection that come from eating your way through a country without a plan.

PRE ORDER IT NOW - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1805221523?psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp
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This week on The Go-To Food Podcast, we are joined by Neil Rankin, the chef behind some of London’s most talked-about restaurants: Pitt Cue, John Salt, Smokehouse, Bad Egg and, of course, Temper. We trace the slightly unconventional route that took him from a sandwich business and a proper career wobble into Michelin kitchens, then on to finding his true groove via BBQ, fire-cooking and big, bold flavours.

Neil Rankin speaks candidly about the darker realities of the industry. Bullying versus brutality, kitchens that nearly broke him, and the moments where power, ego and silence caused lasting damage. There are stories here that are genuinely shocking, including one workplace experience he describes as the worst of his life, and others that reveal how close he came to walking away altogether.

We also get into the headlines. Neil talks about publicly calling out Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White, what prompted it, and why he still stands by the wider point, even if the internet reaction was slightly more chaotic than intended. It is candid, funny in places, and full of the kind of context you only get from someone who has been in the middle of it.

Neil is brilliant on what it actually takes to build hit restaurants, and what people never see. The reality of learning fast, long shifts, the difference between hard kitchens and outright bullying, and how a good head chef can change everything.
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This week we’re joined by one of the most compelling chefs working in Britain right now: Alex Dilling. With a pedigree that runs through Alain Ducasse and Hélène Darroze, and two Michelin stars at his incredible restaurant Café Royal, Alex’s story is one of intense kitchens, huge pressure, and an almost obsessive pursuit of precision.

We talk through his journey in depth, from brutal early days in New York and the shock of stepping into major leadership roles in his twenties, to the highs and lows of overseeing Michelin-starred kitchens in London and Paris. Alex opens up about the realities of elite fine dining, the fear of losing stars, navigating business instability, and what it really feels like to carry the weight of a famous dining room on your shoulders. There are vivid stories from the pass, from kitchen disasters to career-defining moments, told with honesty and humour.

Food, of course, is at the heart of it all. We dig into the thinking behind his most iconic dishes, his love of classic flavours treated with modern restraint, and his famously generous approach to caviar. Alex talks about menu evolution, portion size, keeping creativity alive in a tasting-menu format, and how his cooking has grown lighter, calmer and more confident over time. It’s a wide-ranging, revealing conversation with a chef at the very top of his game, and one who’s still clearly hungry to push things further.
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This episode is a deep dive into the wild reality of being Toby Inskip aka Eating With Tod, where eating a burger can spark headlines and a Christmas market can become a national talking point. He unpacks the moments that blew up online, the backlash that followed, and why being relentlessly positive in public somehow makes people angrier than outright criticism.

We get into the controversies properly. Working with brands like McDonald’s and the reaction that always follows. Why fast food is treated like a moral failing online. The Daily Mail pile-on over pricing and “value”, and how quickly outrage ignores the jobs created, traders supported, and businesses kept alive. Tod is candid about the UK’s obsession with tearing people down once they succeed and how jealousy, rage-bait, and bad faith criticism fuel the algorithm.

There are big stories too. A last-minute call from F1 that derails a holiday and drops him into celebrity chaos. Filming with drivers, speed laps after far too much food, and casually bumping into Gordon Ramsay who already knows exactly who he is. Plus the moments that never make camera. Restaurants that nearly closed before a video changed everything. Others he quietly chose not to post because one bad review could sink a family business.

It also gets self-reflective. The power food creators now hold compared to traditional critics. Whether social media prioritises spectacle over taste. Why he refuses to chase negativity even though it drives clicks. How he built the account while working full-time in construction, posting every single day for years, and why most of his videos are still just him, an iPhone, and a stranger holding the camera. If you want to understand the pressure, privilege, and responsibility of modern food influence, this one goes there.
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This week on The Go-To Food Podcast, we travel to Guernsey to sit down with Nathan Davies at his restaurant Vraic. After walking away from the world’s most intense kitchens, Nathan chose the island to build something entirely his own. What he has created is confident, generous and already one of the most talked about new dining rooms in Britain.

A huge part of Nathan’s story is his formative years working alongside Gareth Ward at Ynyshir. He speaks candidly about the brutality and brilliance of that period, the pressure, the creativity, and the uncompromising standards that shaped him as a chef. It is a rare, honest look inside one of the most influential kitchens of the last decade, and what it really takes to survive and grow in an environment like that.

At Vraic, those lessons are everywhere, but filtered through Nathan’s own voice. The menu blends Welsh roots, Japanese influence, live fire cooking and Guernsey produce into something deeply personal. He talks about why flavour always comes before ego, why generosity matters more than luxury signalling, and how he has taken the best parts of his past without trying to replicate them.

This episode is about ambition without arrogance, discipline without fear, and building a restaurant on your own terms after working at the sharpest end of fine dining. If you want to understand how chefs carry their mentors with them while forging something new, this conversation is essential listening. Recorded at Vraic in Guernsey and powered by Blinq.
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Please leave us a great rating and a comment and share it with your friends - it really helps us grow as a show.If you're in the industry and are looking for the greatest POS system in the world than look no further -as Blinq are tearing up the rulebook—no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and no per-device charges.

Just £69 a month for unlimited devices and 24/7 UK-based support that’s always there, in person when you need it.Built for hospitality, by hospitality, blinq is the fastest, easiest POS system on the market—so intuitive, anyone can use it. And while others take weeks to get you up and running, with blinq, you’re live in just 2 hours.Join the hospitality revolution today & use the code GOTOBLINQ to get your first month free - https://blinqme.com
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